Friendly Fire
by Skysalla
Summary: Sometimes you have an off day. Sometimes, the entire team has an off day. One just has to hope these events don't coincide with the deployment of the Avengers...


For my lovely Lucy's request of the entire team interacting. This is what happened.  
Thank you Jess for making the words not look dumb. :D

* * *

To say that he was in deep shit would have been an understatement. Probably the biggest understatement of his entire career. And for Clint Barton, that was certainly saying something.

It was clear that he must have blacked out and all Clint could remember was drawing back his bow before an excruciating pain had hit him from behind on his drawn arm. He looked at his left arm now almost as if to check that it was still attached. The limb was mangled. Clearly broken in multiple places and throbbing all the way to his shoulder. There was no way in hell he was moving it.

Whatever had hit him had done so with enough force to knock out his earbuds. Either that or Clint had smashed his head on the way down, which seemed likely given the small cut across the bridge of his nose that he could just see in his peripheral vision.

With a sigh, he hung his head and resigned himself to the fact that he was screwed. Because in addition to his shattered left arm and lack of communication, Clint was currently dangling above his near certain death twenty stories below. Why he wasn't dead, Clint wasn't entirely sure but his current predicament suggested it had something to do with the fact that he was hanging by his quiver off of a flagpole on the building that had previously been his perch for the day's battle.

Somehow the flagpole had gotten caught between Clint's quiver and his back, which didn't make a whole lot of sense to Clint until he spotted where the flagpole was now partially dislodged from the building. Apparently his fall had jerked the formally upright pole to a ninety degree angle over the street where his team was battling below him. He was a little bit glad he was unconscious for that part.

Once he had seen how precariously the pole was attached to the building, Clint had given up on his struggles to get turned around and instead opted to hang with all his limbs dangling over the street like the useless rag he evidently was. He could see Captain America and Hulk below him, they were still in the midst of battle and were likely unaware of his present situation.

If Cap was here, it meant Clint was on the South side of the building. Tony had been with Nat on the West and Thor had been going back and forth between the two while Clint had done the same from the roof. But Thor had gone down - or was it up? Clint had seen the explosion that chased Thor's battle partner upwards. He'd tried to keep an eye on Thor and the queen alien as they battled on the roof across from Clint, but his attention had been divided and since Thor was usually less in need of Clint's assistance he hadn't been paying all that much attention to the demigod. Mjolnir had narrowly missed Clint's head when Thor had overthrown his adversary and Clint was thankful his reflexes had been fast enough to avoid unwanted dental work by the hammer.

He couldn't see any activity on that roof now, and there was no sign of Thor in the vicinity. What he saw instead was Hulk backing up as he became overwhelmed with the giant horse faced praying mantis like aliens they'd been battling. "Nonononono." Clint started muttering as he watched Hulk's giant feet being pushed further and further back towards where Clint's bow lay unprotected on the ground below him. He hadn't been able to keep a hold of it when he fell and now he had no choice but to watch it become a casualty of battle.

Hulk pressed back on the offensive when Steve's well thrown shield offered him a reprieve from the onslaught and Clint breathed a sigh of relief when his bow remained untrampled. The shield however did not return to Captain America's outstretched arm as he intended and Clint tried to shout out a warning to the Captain as an alien, thrown by Hulk, came bearing down on Steve's outstretched arm.

Steve toppled sideways under the weight and for the fifth time since he had woken up hanging from the flagpole, Clint felt in his ears for his combo hearing aid/comm. Not that Clint had expected it to have materialized, but he was actually useless without his weapon or comm. He had tried yelling, but there was too much noise on the ground between the battle screeches of the aliens and the Hulk yelling, he was only going to run his voice ragged if he continued to try. Once upon a time Clint would have brought his cell phone out into the field with him but he'd been forced to stop when his phone kept getting broken in their various excursions as Avengers.

There was a flash of red at the West side of the building and it was so brief that Clint didn't get a good enough look to know if it was Tony or Natasha. He jerked his head sideways, but the battle over there remained distinctly out of view and he turned back to watch Hulk and Steve's progress below him.

Steve was picking himself up finally after having wrestled with the alien while on the ground and Clint could tell his right arm was bent at an awkward angle. With each injury amongst the various team members, the battle was looking more and more difficult to win. Despite the injury, Steve continued to battle vehemently with his good arm and several impressive kicks while holding his broken limb tightly to his chest.

Clint torqued his own good arm towards his quiver and managed to grab a fistful of arrows before an uneasy jarring sensation shuddered through the pole. When he looked back to where the pole was still delicately attached to the building, he realized that too many movements were going to bring him closer to his team with a speed he was not prepared to handle.

Slowly he pulled the arrows back in front of him and inspected the tips of what he'd managed to get. While he'd been hoping for an exploding arrow, it didn't look like he was as lucky as that based on the selection. In his hands he had a grip on two plain arrows, a putty arrow, a stink bomb arrow and a boomerang arrow.

Without his bow or use of his left arm, using any of the arrows was going to be incredibly difficult. But Clint didn't get called the worlds best marksman for nothing. He put the shafts of the three trick arrows and a single plain arrow in his mouth, holding them there to free his right arm to throw the remaining single arrow. As he watched Hulk smash two of the alien creatures together, Clint calculated the precise moment to throw the arrow. He'd have to rely on gravity to give it the power it needed to penetrate his target's armor.

Another alien started to creep towards Steve and Clint tossed the arrow. He watched as it fell, its trajectory as perfect as he could make it given the circumstances. The alien stepped precisely where Clint thought it would and his arrow pierced it where the strange horse neck joined the praying mantis body. It wasn't a kill shot, but it evidently made the alien flail and gurgle enough to alert Steve to its presence.

Steve finished the creature off while Clint pulled another arrow from his mouth to line up his next shot. He had pulled the putty arrow and figured it would at the very least slow the bastards down so he might as well use it. A large group of aliens seemed like the ideal target in order to maximize the stickiness of the situation.

Unfortunately Clint didn't predict that the Hulk was going to run towards that exact group of aliens at the precise moment the arrow hit the ground. As the putty exploded everywhere it easily ensnared the six aliens Clint had been aiming for, but also did a great job of sticking the Hulk's left foot to the floor.

"Shit." Clint cursed before he remembered the three arrows still remaining in his mouth. "FUCK!" It was too late for that - the arrows were now all dive bombing the scene below him without direction.

He could see Steve looking up towards the rooftop. Clearly he was trying to say something to Clint on account of him sticking the Hulk to the floor. But Steve was looking a good fifteen stories past where Clint actually was and totally missed the archer's delicate perch on the side of the building.

When the three arrows hit the ground, Steve visibly reacted to the rank cloud of gas that erupted from the stink bomb arrow. Clint only had the arrow as a joke and kept it in his quiver because it was the only logical place to put it. He had never figured out why the hell R&amp;D had wanted to include it in their latest batch of new trial arrows.

As the gas from the arrow started hitting the aliens, they began to visibly choke. The ones closest to the source actually started twitching as if the stink bomb was causing them pain. Steve took advantage of this and began methodically taking out the aliens via hard hits to the neck with his shield. Within moments he had the street cleared.

Clint could see him looking to the roof again as he ran around the corner of the building to help Natasha and Tony. There was no other option than to hang from his perch and watch Hulk rip up the piece of concrete his foot was attached to in order that he might chase after the others. Hulk was in such a rush to chase off towards the fight that he never even saw the bow still laying on the ground directly in the path of his cement burdened foot.

Clint looked away so he didn't have to see it. Now that the battle had moved around the corner, there was nothing to see down there anyways. He would just have to wait for his team to come rescue him. Hopefully it would be before the pole came off the building.

Eventually Iron Man puttered up to eye level, his one gauntlet missing and his arm badly burned underneath. He hovered in front of Clint, his ability to stay in one place severely hindered by the damage his armor had taken. It became apparent to Clint that Tony must have been saying something to him and Clint gestured towards his ears and shouted with probably too much volume, "I can't hear you!"

The faceplate on the suit came up slowly and Tony shifted so Clint could get a better visual on his face without having to twerk his neck too much. As per usual, the genius was speaking much too fast for Clint's lip reading skills to be of much use. Although he was pretty sure he caught the words "stinky, hanging around" and something about "new hearing aids."

Tony tried to grip him under the armpits like a parent would a young child in order to pull him free from his awkward dangling position, but as soon as Tony put pressure on Clint pain exploded in his left shoulder and Clint found himself screaming until the pain knocked him out.

When Clint woke up, he was unsurprisingly in medical. Oddly enough, he was not the only patient. Steve was resting on the bed beside him, his arm held to his chest with a sling. It was more than a little surprising the super soldier was still in medical, but Clint could only assume it was partially because the man was passed out cold. Stark was also occupying a bed while a nurse wrapped gauze around the series of burns he had running up his arm.

Natasha was present, but not being looked after and she crossed to Clint's bed when she saw him awake. She spoke slowly that he might read her lips as she had obviously been informed of his lost hearing aids."Rise and shine, sunshine." Her movement alerted Clint to the fact that Bruce was on his other side, the scientist's foot soaking in something where apparently a piece of concrete still remained firmly attached even after he had transformed back.

When she offered him his hearing aids, he realized his left arm was immobilized at the shoulder with a cast that pretty much ran the entirety of his arm. He took the aids with his right and slowly put them in while she jumped up to sit on the foot of his bed. "What happened?" He croaked, his voice settling at his proper tone now that he could hear himself.

"You smashed up your shoulder. Something like nine breaks in your upper arm, shoulder blade and clavicle. Pretty impressive considering nobody was up there with you." Natasha smirked as she pried open the jello cup she had just liberated from the side of his bed.

"I got hit…" He trailed off. Thinking about what he remembered prior to his tumble from the roof. "Narrowly avoided Mjolnir and then when I went to shoot -" He shook his head. "Got hit from behind. Don't know what it was."

"Mjolnir?" Natasha frowned around a spoonful of blue jello.

"Thor was on the roof across. He missed." Clint fumbled for the water on the table beside him and Natasha watched his struggles without moving to help him. He was thankful for it really, because he knows he can reach the glass. Finally his fingers curl around the cup and after he takes a long, hard drag of the lukewarm water he carefully placed it within closer reach. "Obviously I don't have competition for my accuracy."

"He must have called Mjolnir back and not seen the path." Clint recalled all the times he'd seen Mjolnir go through walls or bad guys or whatever else was in the way and realized that the moment prior to his tumble off the roof he had taken a step back and drawn his bow. He obviously had stepped right into the path of the hammer.

"Ow, ow, ow." Tony's whine came from across the room and now that Clint had his ears back he jerked in response to look over and see what was going on. The nurse was finishing with the gauze and Tony was holding his arm protectively against his chest with a face like a child worried his favorite toy was going to be taken away.

"Oh it's just a minor burn, Stark." Natasha rolled her eyes as she dug into the bottom of the jello cup. "Be glad your armor absorbed most of it."

"My armor shouldn't have had to absorb any of it!" Tony complained as he fell back on the bed.

Bruce lifted his foot out of the tub and angled it to check the bottom. It was easy to see quite a bit of cement stuck to the man's bare foot and with a sigh Bruce submerged his foot again. "What happened to your arm, Tony?"

Tony shot back upright to look at the room. "I'm so glad you asked, Bruce!" Tony scooted to the edge of the bed, but didn't get up. "Because it would seem that there are some people on this team who have very incredibly powerful jewelry that they bring into battle with them."

He was looking pointedly at Natasha's back and Clint watched her as she licked the spoon clean before responding. "It's not jewelery. It's a weapon. And next time maybe you should give me room to work." Natasha didn't even bother to turn and look at Tony, but her words still had the man gawking.

"Give you room!? You were riding that thing!" Tony sputtered. "You rode it right into me!"

Bruce spread his arms towards the room placating. "I'm sure it was an accident, Tony."

Natasha dumped the empty Jello cup and plastic spoon into Clint's lap before whirling to face Tony. "I can't control the dying corpse of an electrocuted alien. It was an accident, Stark. If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead."

Tony paled at the intense look Natasha was no doubt giving him before scootching back and pulling his sheet up around him as if it offered some form of protection.

"No murder on my team." Steve slurred from his bed between Clint and Tony. The Captain was blinking blearily awake and rubbed his eyes with his good hand. "How is everyone doing?" Steve looked around at the group, silently taking them all in. "Where's Thor?"

Bruce shrugged and lifted his foot to inspect it again. "Haven't seen him since he was cleared. He said he took down the queen though. Fury didn't seem too pleased that the battle took him six blocks outside of containment...but he got the job done."

"There were civilian casualties then?" Steve asked, his voice sombre as he met each of their eyes and hoped for the answer of zero. None of them knew and they each looked away in turn.

Clint turned the plastic spoon and empty Jello cup over in his hands as a moment of silence fell through the room. With a quick glance down towards the floor he saw a trash can just on the other side of Bruce's bed against the wall. Natasha hadn't given him much of a challenge this time.

As per norm, Tony broke the silence first. "How'd you break your arm, Cap?"'

Steve's fingers played at the edge of the sling as he tried to remember. "Got jumped I guess." He twitched the fingers of his right arm where they were poking out from the sling. "I thought I had my six covered, must have missed one."

"Hulk threw an alien." Clint answered without thinking as he practically demonstrated by throwing the Jello cup and spoon across the room into the trash. The items sank nicely into the container. "Hulk got overwhelmed cause Mjolnir knocked me off a roof and I couldn't cover properly."

Tony seemed to be putting the pieces together faster than Clint could explain. "And Hulk got gooed by your putty arrow. Sooo." Tony gasped. "Am I the only one who didn't directly injure a teammate?"

Steve's eyebrows furrowed at Tony, obviously trying to remember if he'd done any damage to a teammate, but before he could ask Clint was answering for him. "Actually that award goes to Steve."

"But I didn't -"

"No. You did. You shot the rocket into the queen even though Thor had already engaged." Clint closed his eyes as he remembered the events he had watched from his position on the roof. "The Queen tried to escape, that's what drove their fight up to the roof to get away from you."

Natasha glared at Tony. "Which caused Mjolnir to knock Clint off the roof. And break his shoulder."

Tony looked down, his face fallen as he remembered the events with the rocket. "Autotargeting selected the wrong target and -" Tony deflated when four sets of incredulous eyes turned to him. "Okay. I missed."

Steve shook his head. "This is why I told you guys not to stay up playing that game. It puts everyone off their game the next day and then people get -"

"Oh I'm sorry, you're going to play dad now?" Tony barked back. "Do I need a signed permission slip next time?"

Steve was going to have none of that and he pulled out his most authoritative voice to reprimand Tony. "When the safety of innocent people as well as our team-"

Thor chose that moment to bust into the room, his arms laden with large stuffed bears. Each bear had a different hoodie with the words "Get Well" printed on the front. He placed one on each Avenger's bed before retreating to the doorway. There was a different color carefully passed out as if Thor had preselected them - green for Bruce, purple for Clint, blue for Steve and red for Tony. For Natasha he had brought a coffee as she was not actually injured.

Once everyone got over the shock of the nearly two foot tall stuffed bears Thor had brought, the demigod addressed the room in general. "I am told this is a custom on Midgard. A young maiden explained to me that these bears have a magical power to heal. I could detect no such magic on them, but I am not as versed in spells as others."

Bruce started to chuckle as he practically hugged the bear to his chest. "It's great, Thor." When Clint looked over he realized that Bruce's foot had finally come clear of the cement block. Whatever it had been soaking in to dissolve the putty had released as if magically with the precise arrival of Thor's healing bears. Clint couldn't help but chuckle also.

Steve and Tony stared at Bruce and Clint with confusion. Natasha simply shrugged back at them as Clint shook his head.

But the tension had gone out of the room and after a moment, Tony sighed. "I'm sorry." It was a real apology, not the kind Tony usually gave to get people off his back.

"No. I'm sorry." Steve frowned again. "You're right, I'm not…You can make your own decisions in your offtime."

It was clear the fight had gone out of Steve and Tony and Clint had a hard time not citing magic as the reason. "Sorry for yelling at you too, Natasha." Tony was tugging on the bear's little sweatshirt and not looking at Natasha at all. "I know you'd kill me much more creatively if that was your intention."

Thor seemed taken aback by this statement, but before he could say anything, Natasha responded. "They had to be cranked up to do any damage against those aliens. I'll help you insulate your suit better if you'd like." It was as close to an apology as Clint had known Natasha to make for something that wasn't actually her fault.

"Sorry about the goo, Bruce." Clint looked down at the bucket on the floor next to Bruce's bed. The foot sized cement block drawing his attention.

"Sorry about your bow." apparently someone had told Bruce that Hulk's extra large cement foot had been the cause for Clint's bow being smashed beyond repair. Clint hadn't planned on enlightening him to that fact - it wasn't his fault after all. "Sorry, Steve, about Hulk's aim. Target practice isn't really his forte."

"Eye of Hawk." Clint turned to Thor now who seemed to be catching on to what was happening. "I was unable to properly direct Mjolnir in the heat of battle. Please accept my apologies."

Everyone was nodding their acceptance of the apologies and no more words appeared to be needed. There would be no grudges held and the blame would not continue to be shuffled around perpetually. It was dropped. Easy as that.

The group fell into an easy silence and Clint picked up his bear and pulled the little fabric hoodie up over the bear's head. For some reason seeing the little brown ears sticking through the tiny holes on top of the purple hoodie made him smile and he looked up at Thor. "Thanks for the healing bears, Thor."


End file.
